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The Teseo II chip is ready for eCall, a European initiative intended to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere in the European Union.

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor company, has released its Teseo II single-chip satellite-tracking integrated circuit to the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) for testing for eCall approval. The testing campaign is coordinated by the European GNSS Agency as part of its effort to accelerate Galileo adoption.

The Galileo tests will be conducted by the ESA and JRC over the next months to validate ST’s latest firmware release, according to the European GNSS Agency (GSA) test plan. The testing campaign supports the upcoming Galileo early operational services that are expected to go live at the end of 2014. In addition, the tests will evaluate Teseo II compatibility with the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and with Galileo for the eCall in-vehicle system that automatically sends notification messages from vehicles involved in an accident. Beside static and dynamic test conditions, the testing plan foresees three different use cases, in systems for single-, dual-, and up to triple-constellation (GPS/Galileo/GLONASS) systems.

Following the first position fix using Galileo in-orbit validation satellites conducted by ST and ESA in March 2013, STMicroelectronics has implemented the Galileo Golden-candidate production firmware as an additional constellation in its Teseo II chips. While the Teseo II ICs have always had the capability to be Galileo-ready, ST is enabling a firmware update from the Galileo navigation system. This update benefits consumers and doesn’t require any hardware modification.

The Teseo II chips can simultaneously use signals from multiple satellite navigation systems, including the currently available Galileo satellites, and progressively, as future satellites are launched, the full satellite constellation.

ST’s leadership in the multi-constellation reception delivers immediate use of the Galileo satellites already in orbit, and provides consumers with shorter time-to-first-fix, continuous tracking with enhanced accuracy, and effective operation under challenging circumstances, such as driving through urban canyons.

In January, GPS Worldpublished a cover story on the next-generation Teseo-3 chip, which also provides background on the development of the Teseo II.

Introduced in January 2011, ST’s Teseo II is a standalone satellite receiver able to use signals from multiple satellite navigation systems, including GPS, the European Galileo system, Russian GLONASS, and Japanese QZSS. This multi-constellation approach keeps many satellites in sight, delivering advantages such as shorter time-to-first-fix and continuous tracking with enhanced accuracy, even under challenging circumstances such as driving through urban canyons.